1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for controlling an initial operation of a refrigerator and an apparatus therefor, in which when power is applied to the refrigerator, a temperature control condition is automatically set.
2) Prior Art Description
A general household refrigerator is partitioned into a cooler room and a freezer room. Both the cooler room and the freezer room are cooled by cooling air which is produced by an evaporator and supplied by blowing fans when a compressor of a coolant circuit operates. The cooler room and the freezer room are maintained at desired temperatures, by driving the compressor and the blowing fans intermittently. A control circuit for accurately controlling various loads such as a compressor and blowing fans according to peripheral conditions using a variety of processing functions of a microcomputer, is widely adopted in a recent refrigerator. Such a control circuit in the refrigerator has default values involving temperatures pre-programmed in the refrigerator as an operating condition when power is initially applied thereto. That is, if power is newly applied to the refrigerator, the refrigerator operates in such a manner that the temperatures in the cooler room and freezer room are maintained at respective default values. Of course, after the refrigerator starts to run, a user can change the set temperature at his or her will. Each default value constitutes an intermediate value in a respective range of values.
By the way, when power is cut off from the refrigerator due to power failure, bad contact of a power connector, or detachment of a power plug of a values are reset to the default values, respectively. However, the default temperatures may not be low enough to keep the food fresh. Furthermore, since a momentary power failure is not sensed well by a user, he or she may not realize that the temperatures should be reset. Therefore, even though the temperature control condition should be reset in order to maintain the refrigerator at a desired temperature when the refrigerator's operation resumes after a power failure, this is inconvenient to achieve.
As prior art concerned with restart of a refrigerator after power failure, there are Japanese patent laid-open publications 8-303921, 8-313139, 9-79726 and 9-113090. In these prior art references, when power is applied to a refrigerator, the temperatures of a condenser in a coolant circuit and a freezer are measured. Then, when neither of the measured temperatures is higher than predetermined temperatures, the refrigerator can start to run immediately under normal control without pre-operations of a compressor and blowing fans. Accordingly, the temperature in the refrigerator is quickly restored to predetermined temperatures after power failure. However, when power is applied again after power failure, the temperatures set in the refrigerator are not restored to the previous states, which raises a problem in which a user must reset the refrigerator to the desired temperatures.
Meanwhile, the above problem occurring after power failure can be solved by adopting a battery backup device which can maintain a circuit operation even in the power failure. However, it costs much and results in a complicated structure.